


A Blade of Beskar Made Mortal

by PaxDuane



Series: Gift Fics for Tumblr Friends [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chalactan heritage Fetts, M/M, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, mentioned Clones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25871188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: Din is not sure what to think of Boba Fett.Boba Fett has a whole lot of other things to deal with.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Obi-Wan Kenobi, pre-Boba Fett/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Gift Fics for Tumblr Friends [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877284
Comments: 12
Kudos: 224





	A Blade of Beskar Made Mortal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Icehothockey (ice_hot_13)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/gifts).



Din follows the Armorer, trying to ignore the heat radiating from the two suns above them and the endless sand in front of them. “Ba’vodu, are you sure this is the right place?”

The Armorer is silent for a moment, then. “It is, ad. We just need to get a speeder and take it out to the coordinates.”

Din knows that his buir wants him to apprentice to the Armorer, but if that’s going to include hiking through the Tatooine desert he’s not sure he agrees. “Who are we meeting?” He hadn’t felt like he could ask, before, but…

“A beroya found beskar and contacted me about making some beskar’gam for him.” Another pause, this time filled by her finding someone to rent a speeder from and them loading up. “Partially to test the quality. They didn’t find it on Mandalore.”

“Are they Mando’ad?”

The Armorer hums. “Yes, but they don’t follow the Way.”

“Then they’re not Mando’ad,” Din insists, only for the Armorer to laugh.

“There are more ways to be Mando’ad than the Way,” she chastises him. “Plenty of exiles don’t follow the Way.”

“Exiles like us?”

“No, from before. From families sent away after the war with the Jedi and the Sith, and families run off by the old Duchess.”

“One of those exiles lives _here_?”

The Armorer shakes her head. “No, but their ba’vodu, not Mando but mandokarla, does. We meet both of them on his land.”

They’re just passing endless desert, now. “Why forge for someone who doesn’t follow the Way, though? Shouldn’t we take care of our own people first?”

“We do,” she says, patient as always. “If this beskar is of good enough quality, we will first make beskar’gam for them and their vode, then we will have access for the Tribe.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” she says, laughing a little behind her helmet. “You will like them.”

+

It’s a little hut that probably isn’t worth even the materials it’s made of. There’s no one around, just a herd of banthas.

“It’s a trap,” Din says, though that’s mostly petulance. He’s still not sure he likes the idea of making beskar’gam for someone who doesn’t follow the Way.

“Rude,” comes a voice behind them.

Din swirls around, blaster already out and aimed and--.

The Mando’ad’s beskar’gam is painted in blues and greens and reds, and there are two golden dots on the buy’ce down the middle of the visor, which dips in a way most of their people don’t specify.

They tilt their head, then turn to the Armorer. “Goran, thank you for coming out.”

“Your buir helped me, once. I’d come at least on that as proof you know beskar when you see it.”

The Mando’ad chuckles. “Come,” they say, gesturing around to… A ship, that they hadn’t noticed. “Ben’ba’vodu hides it when he’s on it. He doesn’t want too many connections between us, ‘lek? He’s too much a target.”

They follow him into the ship, where an older man with dimming red hair is sitting on the floor with his eyes shut.

“Boba,” the man says, voice chiding. “You didn’t have to scare him.”

“He was rude, and you always said--.”

“Udesii, ad’ika,” the man says, one eye flicking open, accent perfect and slightly Sundari. “Do not throw my words back at me. You’ll be a better negotiator than me one of these days, but that doesn’t mean you can lecture me yet.”

Negotiator?

The Armorer cackles. “General Kenobi. This is quite a surprise. And more of proof to who this child is, hm?”

Boba seems just as petulant as Din, once those words are said. “Ben, come on. Join us at the table.”

Ben makes a noise, but stands and leads them through to a kitchen. “Tea? We have straws.”

“Please,” the Armorer says, taking a seat at Boba’s indication.

Boba sits too and Din is joining them when they sweep their buy’ce off and set it on the ground beside them, showing off a braided bun with two smaller braids looping down from his forehead and to the back of his head. He wears two gold dots that mimic the ones on his buy’ce. Or those mimic these.

The Armorer reaches over and takes his face in her hands, clucking over him. “Yes, you look just like your buir.”

Boba gives her a wry smile. “Are you surprised?”

She chortles. “You’re wearing a different style of braids than him, and I’d heard that by the end he wasn’t wearing them out of fear it would bring calamity down on either of his people, but I should not be surprised, no.”

Boba hums and accepts a teacup from Ben, who passes the Armorer straws and places more teacups in front of them, dropping a few precious ice cubes in those.

Din studies them. They’re only a few years older than him and…familiar, somehow.

“How many of your brothers are you in contact with?” his ba’vodu asks.

“Me personally?” Boba asks. “Only about five. Ba’vodu keeps track of more.”

Ben makes an annoyed sound. “That’s two more than last time we spoke of this, Bob’ika.”

Boba laughs in a way that sounds like rain. “Fox finally got a hold of Fives again, Dogma called Echo nearly immediately. My ship is not just a place for you to meet people.”

Ben sighs, but he looks happy. “Good. I was worried we’d lost him. You’ll call all of them for me later, ‘lek?”

“Promise.”

The Armorer sips her tea through the straw. “So, how many am I making beskar’gam for, _Ben_?”

Ben shoots her an amused look. “Boba and seven more. Boba wears it most often, so they will always have their own. The others will use it for missions.”

“With the Rebellion?” she asks, and that makes Din’s eyes go wide under his buy’ce.

“Yes.”

“You’re not going in with them?” she asks Boba.

They shake their head. “Yes and no. I’m more useful as an informant and a symbol.” They pause. “You aren’t the first mando’ade who aren’t aliit who have come to find me, simply the first invited.”

“They want you to be Mand’alor.”

Din’s tea sloshes over the sides.

Ben looks tired.

The Armorer and Boba are having a staring contest.

“I would have mine follow you,” the Armorer finally says. “But it will be difficult to insist, since you don’t follow the Way.”

“My people have never been traditionalists,” Boba softly reminds her. “Even Cassus Fett was ahead of his time, eons ago.”

Fett? That name sounds familiar.

“No, you are too connected to the galaxy outside our home system to have ever been traditionalists. You are too Mando to be traditionally Chalactan and too Chalactan to be traditionally Mando.”

Chalacta. Is that where he recognizes Boba Fett from? His parents were Chalactan, though their planet was a colony too far away for quick help.

“Says the one who hides Vizsla’s children.”

Din’s blood runs cold at that and he looks up from his musings. The words were serious, but Boba looks amused.

“You approve.”

“I do.”

The Armorer taps her finger against the table. “Ben and I will take the ship I came in on, you and Din will take your ship. We will meet from different routes at the site. Then, again, we will meet from different routes on Nevarro.”

“You want to take them to the Covert?” Din asks, aghast.

“Where else do you expect me to work, ad?” the Armor tells him, amused. “You’ll see it’s a good idea by the time we get there.”

Din stares incredulously at her.

+

Din hasn’t really worked with anyone besides the other Mando’ade from the Covert before, let alone stayed in a ship alone with any of them.

Boba doesn’t wear their armor once they’re in space, instead dipping into their room and coming back in a thick knitted sweater in the same blues and greens as their armor. They drop into the pilot’s seat, next to where they left Din, and start poking at the system.

Boba’s shorter than Din, now that they’re in bare feet, but he hadn’t taken them to be so much smaller. Yet, when Boba curls up under the edges of the sweater, they seem quite small. Quiet, too, until an inter-hyperspace comm call comes.

“Gar utrel’a,” Boba says once they answer the call, curling their hand under their cheek while a smile creeps across their face.

Din can feel his heartbeat speeding up. What the hell is going on here?

“Usen’ye, kih’vod,” an older voice calls on the other end.

Distantly, Din remembers that Ben and the Armorer both mentioned Boba’s siblings.

“Nu drar,” Boba flings back cheerfully.

The two have the same accent, different than Ben’s and anyone else Din has met. It’s like when the Covert had, for a year, been beside a sea and the waves crashing lulled him to sleep. Well, almost the same. The other speaks with a little less confidence in the Mando’a, a lot like how Din speaks the language.

“Mir’sheb. Me’vaar ti gar?”

Boba hums. “Got a lead on an Armorer. Gar?”

“Naas.” There’s a pause. “I think I found Bacara.”

Boba’s eyes go wide, showing off just how dark their irises are, and they scramble up in their seat. “Where?” they shout, grabbing a datapad and stylus from a drawer Din hadn’t noticed at first. “Oyayc ra kyrayc?”

“Alive,” the voice assures them. “I don’t think Rex would ever forgive me if…” A sigh. “Cuun’yaim. I’ve got him, kih’vod. Look into your Armorer lead. You can run the Imps down after. I just thought you should know. Tell Ben, okay? He’ll get it to Rex.”

“Okay,” Boba says, shoulders slumping even as they scrawl desperately on the datapad. “Okay, Fox. K’baatir.” They sign off the comm.

Din hasn’t ever heard a Mando’ad sign off from a conversation like that. It takes a moment to realize it’s because it’s not a Mando sign off—it’s a Chalactan one in Mando’a.

“Did, uh. Did your buir say that?” he asks, mindful that he doesn’t know Boba like even his ba’vodu apparently does. “K’baatir, I mean.”

Boba glances over at him. “Yeah. Most of the vode learned ret’urcye mhi, if they learned any Mando’a. But the ones I’m close to have picked it up from me.”

“Your buir didn’t teach all of you?”

That makes Boba laugh, half cackle half sob. “No, no he couldn’t. First, he could not claim them, for their safety as much as ours, and then he was dead. Haven’t you heard of us?”

“Heard of you.”

“We’re Fetts, burc’ya. We’re clones, the Eyayade.”

Din starts. “What?”

Boba’s lips have a wry twist to them. “You lived through the Clone Wars, same as me. Just a bit younger. Put it together yourself.”

With that, the older Mando’ad slips back out of the cockpit as silent as a tooka.

What the hells did the Armorer get him into?

+

Din goes through all of the conversations he’s heard since the Armorer decided to bring him to Tatooine. Eventually, it all pulls together.

The Armorer knew Jango Fett, and well enough to know or guess the troubles the previous Mand’alor had in regard to his children. She knew he had one child to call his own, Boba Fett. She knew other clones were around, needed help.

Boba Fett knew enough to call her when they found the beskar. They’re good enough at what they do for people, _including the Armorer_ , to want them to take the title of Mand’alor. They have a trickle of brothers they are managing, helping, loving.

He’s still not sure he likes Boba, or that he would agree on his own to call them Mand’alor or even a Mando’ad, but he can appreciate his ba’vodu’s point of view. And, since Boba doesn’t follow the way… It means Din can see just how _pretty_ they are. It makes him flush, under his buy’ce, but… They _are_ very pretty.

This isn’t going to end well, he dreads. Not for him, not for Boba, not for anyone. He already suspects he’ll dream of his village, of his birth parents, tonight. Boba is Chalactan and Mando’ad, by blood. And, maybe he can grudgingly say, by culture.

**Author's Note:**

> I tortured the end of this thing for like three days, okay. This is what you're getting. I'm leaving you with Din having a crush and Boba being very busy with a horrifying amount of stuff. 
> 
> Notes on this AU that don't technically matter. Boba is Force Sensitive but trained in Chalactan and Mandalorian Force traditions way more than any others; he's in line for the Chalactan throne; he's been helping free clones from the Empire; he's been a big part of directing Mandalorians to Chalacta post-purge since Chalacta is pretending to be a non-entity non-threat to the Empire; and he's spying on the Empire as a bounty hunter. Oh also. Anakin killed Jango in this AU. Ice and I decided that.


End file.
